Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The Right of Nations to Self-Determination

5. THE LIBERAL BOURGEOISIE AND THE SOCIALIST OPPORTUNISTS
IN THE NATIONAL QUESTION

We have seen that the following argument is one of Rosa Luxemburg’s
“trump cards” in lies struggle against the programme of the Marxists in
Russia: recognition of the right
to self-determination is tantamount to supporting the bourgeois nationalism
of the oppressed nations. On the other hand, she says, if we take this
right to mean no more than combating all violence against other nations,
there is no need for a special clause in the programme, for
Social-Democrats are, in general, opposed to all national oppression and
inequality.

The first argument, as Kautsky irrefutably proved nearly twenty years
ago, is a case of blaming other people for one’s own nationalism; in her
fear of the nationalism of the bourgeoisie of oppressed nations, Rosa
Luxemburg is actually playing into the hands of the Black-Hundred
nationalism of the Great Russians! Her second argument is actually a timid
evasion of the question whether or not recognition of national equality
includes recognition of the right to secession. If it does, then Rosa
Luxemburg admits that, in principle, §9 of our Programme is
correct. If it does not, then she does not recognise national
equality. Shuffling and evasions will not help matters here!

However, the best way to test these and all similar arguments is to
study the attitude of the various classes of society towards this
question. For the Marxist this test is obligatory. We must proceed from
what is objective; we must examine the relations between the classes on
this point. In failing to do so, Rosa Luxemburg is guilty of those very
sins of metaphysics, abstractions, platitudes, and sweeping statements,
etc., of which she vainly tries to accuse her opponents.

We are discussing the Programme of the Marxists in Russia,
i.e., of the Marxists of all the nationalities in Russia. Should we not
examine the position of the ruling classes of Russia?

The position of the “bureaucracy” (we beg pardon for this inaccurate
term) and of the feudal landlords of our united-nobility type is well
known. They definitely reject both the equality of nationalities and the
right to self determination. Theirs is the old motto of the days of
serfdom: autocracy, orthodoxy, and the national essence—the last term
applying only to the Great-Russian nation. Even the Ukrainians are declared
to be an “alien” people and their very language is being suppressed.

Let us glance at the Russian bourgeoisie, which was “called upon” to
take part—a very modest part, it is true, but nevertheless some part—in
the government, under the “June Third” legislative and administrative
system. It will not need many words to prove that the Octobrists are
following the Rights in this question. Unfortunately, some Marxists pay
much less attention to the stand of the Great-Russian liberal bourgeoisie,
the Progressists and the Cadets. Yet he who fails to study that stand and
give it careful thought will inevitably flounder in abstractions and
groundless statements in discussing the question of the right of nations to
self-determination.

Skilled though it is in the art of diplomatically evading direct
answers to “unpleasant” questions, Rech, the principal organ of
the Constitutional-Democratic Party, was compelled, in its controversy with
Pravda last year, to make certain valuable admissions. The trouble
started over the All-Ukraine Students’ Congress held in Lvov in the summer
of
1913.[4] Mr. Mogilyansky, the “Ukrainian expert” or Ukrainian
correspondent of Rech, wrote an article in which he poured
vitriolic abuse (“ravings”, “adventurism”, etc.) on the idea that the
Ukraine should secede, an idea which Dontsov, a nationalist-socialist, had
advocated and the above-mentioned congress approved.

While in no way identifying itself with Mr. Dontsov, and declaring
explicitly that he was a nationalist-socialist and that many Ukrainian
Marxists did not agree with him, Rabochaya Pravda stated that the
tone of Rech, or, rather, the way it formulated the
question in principle, was improper and reprehensible for a
Great-Russian democrat, or for anyone desiring to pass as a
democrat.[1]
Let Rech repudiate the Dontsovs if it likes, but, from the
standpoint of principle, a Great-Russian organ of democracy, which it
claims to be, cannot be oblivious of the freedom to secede, the
right to secede.

A few months later, Rech, No. 331, published an
“explanation” from Mr. Mogilyansky, who had learned from the Ukrainian
newspaper
Shlyakhi,[5] published in Lvov, of Mr. Dontsov’s reply, in
which, incidentally, Dontsov
stated that “the chauvinist attacks in Rech have been properly
sullied [branded?] only in the Russian Social-Democratic press”. This
“explanation” consisted of the thrice-repeated statement that “criticism
of Mr. Dontsov’s recipes” “has nothing in common with the repudiation of
the right of nations to self-determination”.

“It must be said,” wrote Mr. Mogilyansky, “that even
‘the right of nations to self-determination’ is not a fetish [mark this!]
beyond criticism: unwholesome conditions in the life of nations may give
rise to unwholesome tendencies in national self-determination, and the fact
that these are brought to light does not mean that the right of nations to
self-determination has been rejected.”

As you see, this liberal’s talk of a “fetish” was quite in keeping
with Rosa Luxemburg’s. It was obvious that Mr. Mogilyansky was trying to
evade a direct reply to the question whether or not he recognised the right
to political self-determination, i. e., to secession.

The newspaper Proletarskaya Pravda, issue No. 4, for
December 11, 1913, also put this question point-blank to
Mr. Mogilyansky and to the Constitutional-Democratic
Party.[2]

Thereupon Rech (No. 340) published an unsigned, i.e.,
official, editorial statement replying to this question. This reply boils
down to the following three points:

1)
§11 of the Constitutional-Democratic Party’s programme speaks bluntly,
precisely and clearly of the “right of nations to free cultural
self-determination”.

2)
Rech affirms that Proletarskaya Pravda “hopelessly
confuses” self-determination with separatism, with the secession of a
given nation.

3)
“Actually, the Cadets have never pledged themselves to advocate the
right of ‘nations to secede’ from the Russian state.” (See the
article “National-Liberalism and the Right of Nations to
Self-Determination”, in Proletarskaya Pravda No. 12, December 20,
1913.[3]
)

Let us first consider the second point in the Rech
statement. How strikingly it shows to the Semkovskys, Liebmans, Yurkeviches
and other opportunists that the hue and cry
they have raised about the alleged “vagueness”, or “indefiniteness”, of
the term “self-determination” is in fact, i. e., from the
standpoint of objective class relationships and the class struggle in
Russia, simply a rehash of the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie’s
utterances!

Proletarskaya Pravda put the following three
questions to the enlightened “Constitutional-Democratic” gentlemen of
Rech:
(1) do they deny that, throughout the entire history of international
democracy, and especially since the middle of the nineteenth
century, self-determination of nations has been understood to mean precisely
political self-determination, the right to form an independent national
state?
(2) do they deny that the well-known resolution adopted by the
International Socialist Congress in London in 1896 has the same meaning?
and
(3) do they deny that Plekhanov, in writing about self-determination as far
back as 1902, meant precisely political self-determination? When
Proletarskaya Pravda posed these three questions, the Cadets
fell silent!

Not a word did they utter in reply, for they had nothing to say. They
had to admit tacitly that Proletarskaya Pravda was absolutely
right.

The liberals’ outcries that the term “self-determination” is vague
and that the Social-Democrats “hopelessly confuse” it with separatism are
nothing more than attempts to confuse the issue, and evade
recognition of a universally established democratic principle. If the
Semkovskys, Liebmans and Yurkeviches were not so ignorant, they would be
ashamed to address the Workers in a liberal vein.

But to proceed. Proletarskaya Pravda compelled Rech
to admit that, in the programme of the Constitutional-Democrats, the term
“cultural” self-determination means in effect the repudiation of
political self-determination.

“Actually, the Cadets have never pledged themselves to advocate the
right of ‘nations to secede’ from the Russian state”—it was not without
reason that Proletarskaya Pravda recommended to Novoye
Vremya and Zemshchina these words from Rech as an
example of our Cadets’ “loyalty”. In its issue No. 13563, Novoye
Vremya, which never, of course, misses an opportunity of mentioning
“the Yids” and taking digs at the Cadets, nevertheless stated:

“What, to the Social-Democrats, is an axiom of political
wisdom [i.e., recognition of the right of nations to self-determination,
to secede], is today beginning to cause disagreement even among the
Cadets.”

By declaring that they “have never pledged themselves to advocate the
right of nations to secede from the Russian state”, the Cadets have, in
principle, taken exactly the same stand as Novoye Vremya. This is
precisely one of the fundamentals of Cadet national-liberalism, of
their kinship with the Purishkeviches, and of their dependence, political,
ideological and practical, on the latter. Proletarskaya Pravda
wrote: “The Cadets have studied history and know only too well what—to
put it mildly—pogrom-like actions the practice of the ancient right of
the Purishkeviches to ‘grab ’em and hold ’em’ has often led to.” Although
perfectly aware of the feudalist source and nature of the Purishkeviches’
omnipotence; the Cadets are, nevertheless, taking their stand on the
basis of the relationships and frontiers created by that very
class. Knowing full well that there is much in the relationships and
frontiers created or fixed by this class that is un-European and
anti-European (we would say Asiatic if this did not sound undeservedly
slighting to the Japanese and Chinese), the Cadets, nevertheless, accept
them as the utmost limit.

Thus, they are adjusting themselves to the Purishkeviches, cringing to
them, fearing to jeopardise their position, protecting them from the
people’s movement, from the democracy. As Proletarskaya Pravda
wrote: “In effect, this means adapting oneself to the interests of the
feudal-minded landlords and to the worst nationalist prejudices of the
dominant nation, instead of systematically combating those prejudices.”

Being men who are familiar with history and claim to be democrats, the
Cadets do not even attempt to assert that the democratic movement, which is
today characteristic of both Eastern Europe and Asia and is striving to
change both on the model of the civilised capitalist countries, is bound to
leave intact the boundaries fixed by the feudal epoch, the epoch of the
omnipotence of the Purishkeviches and the disfranchisement of wide strata
of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie.

The fact that the question raised in the controversy between
Proletarskaya Pravda and Rech was not merely a literary
question, but one that involved a real political issue of the day, was
proved, among other things, by the last conference of the
Constitutional-Democratic Party held on March 23–25, 1914; in the official
report of this conference in Rech (No. 83, of March 26, 1914) we
read:

“A particularly lively discussion also took place on
national problems. The Kiev deputies, who were supported by N. V. Nekrasov
and A. M. Kolyubakin, pointed out that the national question was becoming a
key issue, which would have to he faced up to more resolutely than
hitherto. F. F. Kokoshkin pointed out, however [this “however” is like
Shchedrin’s “but”—“the ears never grow higher than the forehead,
never!”] that both the programme and past political experience demanded
that ‘elastic formulas’ of ‘political self-determination of nationalities’
should be handled very carefully.”

This most remarkable line of reasoning at the Cadet conference deserves
serious attention from all Marxists and all democrats. (We will note in
parentheses that Kievskaya Mysl, which is evidently very well
informed and no doubt presents Mr. Kokoshkin’s ideas correctly, added that,
of course, as a warning to his opponents, he laid special stress on the
danger of the “disintegration” of the state.)

The official report in Rech is composed with consummate
diplomatic skill designed to lift the veil as little as possible and to
conceal as much as possible. Yet, in the main, what took place at the Cadet
conference is quite clear. The liberal-bourgeois delegates, who were
familiar with the state of affairs in the Ukraine, and the “Left” Cadets
raised the question precisely of the political self-determination
of nations. Otherwise, there would have been no need for Mr. Kokoshkin to
urge that this “formula” should be “handled carefully”.

The Cadet programme, which was of course known to the delegates at the
Cadet conference, speaks of “cultural”, not of political
self-determination. Hence, Mr. Kokoshkin was defending the
programme against the Ukrainian delegates, and against
the Left Cadets; he was defending “cultural” self-determination as
opposed to “political” self-determination. It is perfectly clear
that in opposing “political” self-determination, in playing up the danger
of the
“disintegration of the state”, and in calling the formula “political
self-determination” an “elastic” one (quite in keeping with
Rosa Luxemburg!), Mr. Kokoshkin was defending Great-Russian
national-liberalism against the more “Left” or more democratic elements
of the Constitutional-Democratic Party and also against the Ukrainian
bourgeoisie.

Mr. Kokoshkin won the day at the Cadet conference, as is evident from
the treacherous little word “however” in the Rech report;
Great-Russian national-liberalism has triumphed among the Cadets. Will not
this victory help to clear the minds of those misguided individuals among
the Marxists in Russia who, like the Cadets, have also begun to fear the
“elastic formulas of political self-determination of nationalities”?

Let us, “however”, examine the substance of Mr. Kokoshkin’s line of
thought. By referring to “past political experience” (i.e., evidently,
the experience of 1905, when the Great-Russian bourgeoisie took alarm for
its national privileges and scared the Cadet Party with its fears), and
also by playing up the danger of the “disintegration of the state”,
Mr. Kokoshkin showed that he understood perfectly well that political
self-determination can mean nothing else but the right to secede and form
an independent national state. The question is—how should Mr. Kokoshkin’s
fears be appraised in the light of democracy in general, and the
proletarian class struggle in particular?

Mr. Kokoshkin would have us believe that recognition of the right to
secession increases the danger of the “disintegration of the state”. This
is the viewpoint of Constable Mymretsov, whose motto was “grab ’em and
hold ’em”. From the viewpoint of democracy in general, the very opposite
is the case: recognition of the right to secession reduces the
danger of the “disintegration of the state”.

Mr. Kokoshkin argues exactly like the nationalists do. At their last
congress they attacked the Ukrainian “Mazeppists”. The Ukrainian
movement, Mr. Savenko and Co. exclaimed, threatens to weaken the ties
between the Ukraine and Russia, since Austrian Ukrainophilism is
strengthening the Ukrainians’ ties with Austria! It remains unexplained why
Russia cannot try to “strengthen” her ties with the
Ukrainians through the same method that the Savenkos blame Austria
for using, i.e., by granting the Ukrainians freedom to use their own
language, self-government and an autonomous Diet.

The arguments of the Savenkos and Kokoshkins are exactly alike, and
from the purely logical point of view they are equally ridiculous and
absurd. Is it not clear that the more liberty the Ukrainian nationality
enjoys in any particular country, the stronger its ties with that country
will be? One would think that this truism could not be disputed without
totally abandoning all the premises of democracy. Can there be greater
freedom of nationality, as such, than the freedom to secede, the freedom to
form an independent national state?

To clear up this question, which has been so confused by the liberals
(and by those who are so misguided, as to echo them), we shall cite a very
simple example. Let us take the question of divorce. In her article Rosa
Luxemburg writes that the centralised democratic state, while conceding
autonomy to its constituent parts, should retain the most important
branches of legislation, including legislation on divorce, under the
jurisdiction of the central parliament. The concern that the central
authority of the democratic state should retain the power to allow divorce
can be readily understood. The reactionaries are opposed to freedom of
divorce; they say that it must be “handled carefully”, and loudly declare
that it means the “disintegration of the family”. The democrats, however,
believe that the reactionaries are hypocrites, and that they are actually
defending the omnipotence of the police and the bureaucracy, the privileges
of one of the sexes, and the worst kind of oppression of women. They
believe that in actual fact freedom of divorce will not cause the
“disintegration” of family ties, but, on the contrary, will strengthen
them on a democratic basis, which is the only possible and durable basis in
civilised society.

To accuse those who support freedom of self-determination, i. e.,
freedom to secede, of encouraging separatism, is as foolish and
hypocritical as accusing those who advocate freedom of divorce of
encouraging the destruction of family ties. Just as in bourgeois society
the defenders of privilege
and corruption, on which bourgeois marriage rests, oppose freedom of
divorce, so, in the capitalist state, repudiation of the right to
self-determination, i. e., the right of nations to secede, means nothing
more than defence of the privileges of the dominant nation and police
methods of administration, to the detriment of democratic methods.

No doubt, the political chicanery arising from all the relationships
existing in capitalist society sometimes leads members of parliament and
journalists to indulge in frivolous and even nonsensical twaddle about one
or another nation seceding. But only reactionaries can allow themselves to
be frightened (or pretend to be frightened) by such talk. Those who stand
by democratic principles, i.e., who insist that questions of state be
decided by the mass of the population, know very well that there is a
“tremendous
distance”[6] between what the politicians prate about and what the
people decide. From their daily experience the masses know perfectly well
the value of geographical and economic ties and the advantages of a big
market and a big state. They will, therefore, resort to secession only when
national oppression and national friction make joint life absolutely
intolerable and hinder any and all economic intercourse. In that case, the
interests of capitalist development and of the freedom of the class
struggle will be best served by secession.

Thus, from whatever angle we approach Mr. Kokoshkin’s arguments, they
prove to be the height of absurdity and a mockery of the principles of
democracy. And yet there is a modicum of logic in these arguments, the
logic of the class interests of the Great-Russian bourgeoisie. Like most
members of the Constitutional-Democratic Party, Mr. Kokoshkin is a lackey
of the money-bags of that bourgeoisie. He defends its privileges in
general, and its state privileges in particular. He defends them
hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder with Purishkevich, the only
difference being that Purishkevich puts more faith in the feudalist cudgel,
while Kokoshkin and Co. realise that this cudgel was badly damaged in 1905,
and rely more on bourgeois methods of fooling the masses, such as
frightening the petty bourgeoisie and the peasants with the spectre of the
“disintegration of the state”, and deluding them with phrases
about blending “people’s freedom” with historical tradition, etc.

The liberals’ hostility to the principle of political
self-determination of nations can have one, and only one, real class
meaning: national-liberalism, defence of the state privileges of the
Great-Russian bourgeoisie. And the opportunists among the Marxists in
Russia, who today, under the Third of June regime, are against the right of
nations to self-determination—the liquidator Semkovsky, the Bundist
Liebman, the Ukrainian petty-bourgeois Yurkevich—are actually
following in the wake of the national-liberals, and corrupting the working
class with national-liberal ideas.

The interests of the working class and of its struggle against
capitalism demand complete solidarity and the closest unity of the workers
of all nations; they demand resistance to the nationalist policy of the
bourgeoisie of every nationality. Hence, Social-Democrats would be
deviating from proletarian policy and subordinating the workers to the
policy of the bourgeoisie if they were to repudiate the right of nations to
self-determination, i.e., the right of an oppressed nation to secede, or
if they were to support all the national demands of the bourgeoisie of
oppressed nations. It makes no difference to the hired worker whether he is
exploited chiefly by the Great-Russian bourgeoisie rather than the
non-Russian bourgeoisie, or by the Polish bourgeoisie rather than the
Jewish bourgeoisie, etc. The hired worker who has come to understand his
class interests is equally indifferent to the state privileges of the
Great-Russian capitalists and to the promises of the Polish or Ukrainian
capitalists to set up an earthly paradise when they obtain state
privileges. Capitalism is developing and will continue to develop, anyway,
both in integral states with a mixed population and in separate national
states.

In any case the hired worker will be an object of
exploitation. Successful struggle against exploitation requires that the
proletariat be free of nationalism, and be absolutely neutral, so to speak,
in the fight for supremacy that is going on among the bourgeoisie of the
various nations. If the proletariat of any one nation gives the slightest
support to the privileges of its “own” national bourgeoisie, that will
inevitably rouse distrust among the proletariat of
another nation; it will weaken the international class solidarity of the
workers and divide them, to the delight of the bourgeoisie. Repudiation of
the right to self-determination or to secession inevitably means, in
practice, support for the privileges of the dominant nation.

We will get even more striking confirmation of this if we take the
concrete case of Norway’s secession from Sweden.

Notes

[4]
This refers to the Second All-Ukraine Students’ Congress held
in Lvov on June 19–22 (July 2–5), 1913, to coincide with anniversary
celebrations in honour of Ivan Franko, the great Ukrainian writer, scholar,
public figure, and revolutionary democrat. A report “The Ukrainian Youth
and the Present Status of the Nations” was made at the Congress by the
Ukrainian Social-Democrat Dontsov, who supported the slogan of an
“independent” Ukraine.

[5]Shlyakhi (Paths)—organ of the Ukrainian Students’
Union (nationalistic trend), published in Lvov from April 1913 to
March 1914.